ULTRASONIC-ASSISTED DRYING AND INTERMITTENT DRYING: A MODELING STUDY USING THE REACTION ENGINEERING APPROACH (REA)

Abstract

Drying is a simultaneous heat and mass transfer process which involves significant
energy consumption. For sustainable processing practice, ultrasonic-assisted drying is often
implemented. In order to assist in process design and optimization, a physically-meaningful
drying model is useful. The REA (reaction engineering approach), which has been shown to
be accurate to model several challenging drying cases, is implemented here to model the
ultrasonic-assisted drying with various intensities. The relative activation energy (ΔEv,b)
generated from one accurate drying experiment is used to model the ultrasound-assisted
drying with various intensities. The results of modeling match very well with the
experimental data. The REA is accurate to model the ultrasonic-assisted drying. The
mechanisms of ultrasonic-assisted drying can be explained well by the REA. A landmark for
process intensification of drying process has been set up by the REA. The model can be
readily adopted in industrial settings for process design and optimization.